Political power has now been outsourced fully to the Modi government. Even if the RSS is still, in principle, his guru, nobody would dare to whisper a word of advice to Modi, forget some whiff of criticism. When the shishya grows into such a popular and domineering leader, the guru has to applaud from the sidelines, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'We will likely never know why Xi decided not to travel to New Delhi. One possible explanation could be his desire to avoid a meeting with US President Joe Biden.'
Blinken will also attend a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping and will hold bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in Delhi.
On Friday, Putin formally announced the annexation of four regions -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia -- and claimed that "this is the will of millions of people".
Australia coach Darren Lehmann will have a 'private chat' with Usman Khawaja after the top order batsman publicly criticised selectors for dropping him during the Sri Lanka tour. Khawaja and opener Joe Burns were omitted for the third and final test in Colombo, which Australia lost to slump to a 3-0 series whitewash. Although both the Queenslanders struggled for runs, Khawaja told local media over the weekend he felt they were unfairly singled out.
Sources said there was no need 'immediately' to look into legal aspects or consider anything else (such as the possibility of political interests over the dismissal and a counter-strategy to frustrate it), as the dismissal was now on hold.
The surprise action comes weeks after the broadcaster aired a two-part documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots and India.
Russia has almost completed the delivery of major components of the second regiment of the weapon systems.
The BJP has nothing to lose after a point. For the DMK it is a difficult choice, as it would not want to give too much of space to a 'national party' lest the 'Dravidian duel' of the past decades should be lost forever, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Imphal Valley in Manipur remained peaceful but tense on Friday, however intermittent gunfights between militant groups and security forces were reported from the hill districts surrounding the valley.
The top diplomats of Quad nations on Friday denounced as "inadmissible" any use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war and strongly opposed any "unilateral actions" that seek to change the status quo in the South and East China Seas, a region that has witnessed increasing Chinese military offensive.
In its sheer audacity, the initiative with Russia has the potential to transform world politics in the same way as the 1972 Nixon visit to China and 'Shanghai Declaration' changed world dynamics, says Anil Athale.
Shinde will spend the night at Radisson Blu hotel, the same hotel where the then rebel MLAs had stayed in June.
The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Thursday evening as a 'very severe cyclonic storm' with maximum wind speed reaching up to 150 kilometres per hour, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
Cooler weather meant that demand for milk products and value-added items like buttermilk and ice-cream did not show the usual rise.
The best selling author, firebrand conservative Christian and co-director of the highly successful and polemical docu drama, 2016: Obama's America, Dinesh D'Souza, is surely one of the most controversial writers and activists in America.
India would not be seen to be anything but rude with the Pakistanis. In the big picture, who is the bigger adversary right now? Who is the bigger pain in the neck? And who is it that is keeping more than 3,000 km of our borders active, throwing our military posture and deployments into imbalance? asks Shekhar Gupta.
As India and the United States are set to begin negotiations on two transformational deals -- Security of Supply Arrangement (SOSA) and Reciprocal Defence Procurement Agreement (RDP) -- the Pentagon has said that the defence industries of the two nations will come together once the negotiations conclude.
The Opposition party asked whether the prime minister will take responsibility for the 'deadliest rail tragedy' of this century.
Some may see China's decision to antagonise India as strategically unwise. But China believes its prestige demands standing up to India, whatever the cost.
China and the US flexed their naval might by deploying aircraft carriers in a rare showdown in the Taiwan Strait, the narrow channel that separates the Chinese mainland from Taiwan, as Beijing fumed over US House Speaker's meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Washington.
India on Tuesday advised its citizens in Ukraine to temporarily leave that country amid escalating tension between Russia and NATO countries over the eastern European nation.
While it hit the national capital two days before schedule, its entry into the financial capital is two weeks late, the Met office said.
The rising dependence on discounted crude oil has resulted in India's trade deficit with Russia hitting the second-highest place last year, after China, reveals Department of Commerce data. From April through January 2022-23 (FY23), India's maximum trade deficit was with China, at $71.58 billion. This was followed by Russia, where the deficit expanded sevenfold - from $4.86 billion in April-January of 2021-22 (FY22) to $34.79 billion during the same period in FY23.
'In view of the continued high levels of tensions and uncertainties with respect to the situation in Ukraine, all Indian nationals whose stay is not deemed essential and all Indian students, are advised to leave Ukraine temporarily,' the embassy said.
'Transformation of Ukraine into some kind of permanent strategic challenger, which Russia would have to contain and deter, spend a significant part of political and strategic resources on it.'
The gunfire erupted during a lunch reception honouring a former pastor of a Taiwanese congregation that has services at Geneva.
Officers at Army headquarters say the chief has personally initiated this reshuffle, reports Ajai Shukla
The Indian position on the Russia-Ukraine war and the unconditional treaty between China and Russia appear to have caused some ripples in India-US relations and led to a reappraisal of India's usefulness to the US in the eventuality of a conflict with China, notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
A number of world leaders shared their well wishes for former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who is in a critical condition after being shot during a campaign speech on Friday in western Japan.
16 Indian Army divisions face China, 20 face Pakistan and two divisions are reserves. This powerful signal can hardly be missed in China or Pakistan, notes Ajai Shukla.
Mrinal Pande remembers Rajendra Yadav, one of the most prolific fiction writers and thinkers of Hindi literature in the recent times, who passed away on Monday.
The Army on Tuesday said it was prepared to give an appropriate response to any adverse aggressive designs of China in the Ladakh sector, maintaining that the integrity of the country was being ensured through physical patrolling and technical means.
The responsibility for peace in Ukraine now rests in the hands of the two principal belligerents, Russia and the US, and the prime victim of this great power rivalry, Ukraine, points out Nitin Desai.
By changing the nation's name from India to Bharat, would this landmass overnight lose the emotional and cultural linkage that had been built over generations, centuries and millennia, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
India is now much ahead of other large railway networks in the world in terms of electrification -- with the US at just 1 per cent, China at 72 per cent and Europe at 60 per cent.
'All anecdotal evidence confirms that there has been no noticeable rise in deaths across the country for want of coronavirus tests,' notes Virendra Kapoor.
The senior bureaucrat, before being transferred to MEDD, was the collector of Kolhapur and had handled the 2019 floods that ravaged the western Maharashtra district.
Temperatures in March will be critical to determining the impact of any unusual heatwave conditions on this year's wheat crop in North India. It is that time of the year when the crop enters its vital grain-filling stage, say meteorologists and crop experts. So far, the high day temperatures in the North are not believed to have any significant impact on the final yields since the crop hasn't entered a stage where heat affects yields.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was representing President Vladimir Putin, left Bali on Wednesday, a day ahead of the scheduled conclusion of the G20 Summit held amid the economic challenges triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war.
